15Specialty Creditors
Creditor Classification 15: Check Guarantee
Creditor Classification 15 means "Check Guarantee". The original creditor was a check-guarantee or check-verification company that paid a merchant on a dishonoured consumer check and now holds the resulting obligation. It is reported in K1 Creditor Classification (Field K1-4) of the K1 Segment (Original Creditor Name), 2 characters at position 33.
Specification
| Code | 15 |
|---|---|
| Meaning | Check Guarantee |
| Field | K1 Creditor Classification (Field K1-4) |
| Record | K1 Segment (Original Creditor Name) |
| Length / position | 2 chars · 33–34 |
| Category | Specialty Creditors |
| CRRG reference | CRRG Creditor Classification code table (K1 Segment) |
What Creditor Classification 15 means
- The economics are distinctive: the consumer wrote a check, the merchant was made whole by the guarantee company, and the consumer's obligation moved to that company by the terms of the guarantee.
- The original creditor for this field is the check-guarantee company, because it is the party the consumer came to owe, even though the underlying purchase was made at a retailer.
- Distinguish from 01 (Retail). A returned check the MERCHANT itself pursued, with no guarantee company involved, is a retail obligation.
- Does NOT mean any returned-payment fee. A returned ACH or card payment on an ordinary credit account is part of that account, not a separate check-guarantee obligation.
- The balance typically comprises the face amount of the check plus contractually or statutorily permitted fees, and those fees are the most disputed part of these tradelines.
When to report 15
- 1A collection agency reports a dishonoured check balance placed by a national check-guarantee company after the merchant was reimbursed.
- 2A debt buyer purchases a portfolio of returned-check obligations from a check-verification network.
- 3A recovery vendor furnishes a guaranteed-check balance where the guarantee company paid a grocery chain and pursued the consumer.
- 4A collection attorney reports a returned-check obligation escalated for legal collection after the guarantee company placed it.
Reporting rules
- Name the check-guarantee company on the K1, not the merchant where the check was written, since the guarantee company is the creditor the consumer owes.
- Furnish only the amount actually owed, and be precise about which fees are contractually or statutorily permitted. Fee inflation on these tradelines is a recurring accuracy problem.
- Do not use 15 for an ordinary retail account that happens to have had a returned payment. That account keeps its own classification.
- Confirm the check was genuinely dishonoured and that the guarantee actually paid before the obligation is furnished at all.
Codes and fields that must agree
A file can be structurally valid and still be wrong. These are the cross-field conditions Creditor Classification 15 has to satisfy.
- Report only on a record carrying a K1 segment, meaning a collection agency, debt buyer, or attorney is furnishing on behalf of, or after purchase from, the guarantee company.
- Pairs with Base Segment Account Type 48 (Collection Agency/Attorney Account) for placed balances and 0C (Debt Buyer Account) where the obligations were purchased outright.
- Portfolio Type O (Open) fits a single dishonoured-check obligation, which has no term, no scheduled payment, and no revolving line behind it. An instalment Portfolio Type here is almost always wrong.
- Date of First Delinquency runs from the check being dishonoured and the obligation going unpaid, not from the date the guarantee company paid the merchant and not from placement.
- Where a book of these obligations was sold, add the K2 (Purchased From / Sold To) segment naming the seller, while K1 continues to name the guarantee company.
Common errors involving 15
Vocabulary
Keep browsing
- All 15 creditor classification codes — the full set with categories and cross-field rules.
- Metro 2 codes cheat sheet — every CRRG code set on one page.
- K1 Creditor Classification field reference — position, length, and validation rules.
- Metro 2 format reference
See Creditor Classification 15 in your own file
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